


Random Drabbles: Desperate Measures

by dogmatix



Series: Random Drabbles [9]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU!Vader, Anakin haunts Ben, Angst, Canon deaths stay canon, GFY, Gen, Suitless Vader, meddling force ghosts, of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:32:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7934704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dogmatix/pseuds/dogmatix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin Skywalker wants nothing more than to rescue his grandson from the Dark side. He gets some  unexpected help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Random Drabbles: Desperate Measures

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I wrote a sort-of TFA fic. XD; Many thanks to @norcumi for being awesome
> 
> The Vader here is an AU Vader, from a timeline where things went a little bit differently, and he’s more a grey Sith (not a Jedi, but not evil for the sake of evil) than anything.

To say that Anakin Skywalker’s existence was unusual would be an understatement of titanic proportions. Case in point, he’d spent the last several years doing his level best to drag his grandson back to the Light. His effort was slightly hampered by being dead.

Being alone didn’t help, either.  He hadn’t been at all surprised when Yoda had let himself dissipate into the Force. Obi-Wan’s dissolution had been more upsetting.

It had been a joyous reunion, after the destruction of the second Death Star, but Obi-Wan had been tired, and their friendship had never quite recovered.  Anakin had considered it, himself.  Letting go of the living world, setting down the burden of guilt and love he’d carried for so many years. Luke had been his anchor.  Luke, and Leia. His children.

He didn’t show himself to them often. Actually he’d only shown himself to Luke, and only twice. Mostly he was content to watch, to see them rebuild something good out of the ashes of the Empire.

He’d tried to warn Luke about Ben’s Fall, but Anakin had caught the corruption too late, and his warning came only moments before the attack on the fledgeling Jedi Order.  After that, it had hurt so much to watch his children’s grief, to see them drift apart, and so Anakin had turned his determination towards Ben.  He would save his grandson, would guide him back, the way Luke had guided Anakin back.

It was a bitter irony that Ben himself continued to ask for Anakin’s help, but could not realize that the call to the Light was the answer.

Jakku had changed everything.  It had lit up the Force like a nova.  It had brought Anakin’s worst nightmare into being.

Neither of them knew how, or why, but after the first incident on Jakku, there had been another presence in the Force. Another Force ghost. Anakin. But not Anakin.

 _Vader_.

Not the monster Anakin had been, with the blank mask that cut him off from the world. No, it was stranger than that.

This wasn’t the broken, hopeless version of himself, doing the only thing left to do.  This Vader was older than Anakin’s mid-twenties mental image of himself by at least fifty years, shortened hair going to grey at the temples.  He was dressed in black, but not the suit that Anakin had worn, just a simple black tunic and pants. Most disconcerting was how casual the doppelgänger was about the Dark side. Cavalier, as if the Dark side hadn’t only ever caused death and suffering across the galaxy.  Anakin had tried to fight Vader, to keep him away from Ben, but that, too, was complicated by being dead.

Oddly, Vader seemed as bewildered by his own presence as Anakin was. It had only taken the newcomer about a day to pick up on the major elements of galactic history and the tragedy of the current generation of their bloodline. A large part of Vader’s bemused confusion had fallen away when Ben’s identity had come to light.

Vader had sworn to Anakin that he didn’t intend to interfere with Anakin’s attempts to save Ben Organa. Anakin wasn’t sure how much faith he could put in a Darksider’s word, but events were moving too quickly, and Anakin had to focus on Ben.

There had been a moment, between Vader’s arrival and when everything went to shit on Starkiller Base, when Anakin had almost reached Ben.  True to his word, Vader hadn’t made a peep or disrupted Anakin’s attempt in any way.

Bastard hadn’t even said ‘I told you so’ afterwards.  He’d just continued to look on with that inscrutable expression.

Han Solo showing up on Starkiller Base had made Anakin hope against hope that Ben could be reached. Surely, his own father…  As the base exploded around them, Anakin could only sit, crumpled in a heap, as Vader stood half a step behind him, off to one side.  Both were silent.

“Your plan isn’t working,” Vader said, voice even.

“Fuck off!” Anakin snarled, his temper flaring up, fed by grief such as he hadn’t felt in decades.

“It was a good attempt, but it’s time to try something else.”

“Like what?” Anakin asked bitterly, at his wit’s end.

Vader looked off into the raging inferno of the reborn star surrounding them.  "The kid wants Vader. So give him Vader.“

"No!” Anakin said, surging to his feet. “No, I am _not_ giving up on him!”

“Whoever said anything about giving up?” Vader raised an eyebrow, and Anakin wanted to punch him in the face.

“I can reach him! I just have to try harder-”

“If you try any harder, you’re going to give yourself an aneurism.” Vader held up a hand to forestall Anakin’s retort. “It was a good attempt. It almost worked.”

“I won’t let you touch him!”

Vader clasped his hands behind his back and let out a put-upon sigh. “I know you want to save the kid. I have no objection to your grandson being dragged back to the Light, but the plan _failed_. It’s time to consider other alternatives to reaching your goal.”

“How in all the hells does 'giving him Vader’ bring him any closer to being saved?” Anakin asked. He wouldn’t have given Vader this much of a chance even yesterday, but yesterday Ben hadn’t killed Han Solo yet.

“By attacking the problem from a different angle.” Vader said, and proceeded to outline a plan that was as crazy as Anakin’s entire life, rolled into ball and distilled.

* * *

 

Vader stared down at the grandson he’d never had.  He had to wonder, why 'Ben’?  Why hadn’t Leia named her son after Bail, or given him a new name not tainted by death and betrayal?  Well. He didn’t know this Leia, not the way he knew his own daughter, so he supposed it would remain a mystery.

The young man sat down in front of the partially slagged mask that Vader’s young-looking doppelgänger said had been the face of 'Darth Vader’ for over two decades.

Anakin shifted uneasily in the corner. Vader hoped his alternate self would be able to keep his mouth shut. For all that they had to be about the same age, Anakin _felt_ decades younger, and had the volatile temper to match.

Vader pushed his Darkness to the fore, letting it fill the room where Ben Organa, now Kylo Ren, sat staring at a melted bit of plastic.

“Grandfather?” the boy gasped, starting upright, only to stop as his wound pained him.

“You have done well,” Vader said, tones approving. “The Dark side is strong in you.”

“I knew- I knew it! Thank you, grandfather! I knew I only had to try harder!”

Vader had to close his eyes, managing not to groan. Gods, why did _that_ particular self-destructive determination have to breed true?

“Indeed,” Vader said in his best acting voice. “You have made a good start.”

“A start?” the boy asked, dismay threading his voice.

“A pity, that that kind of loyalty had to be discarded, but a necessary step, to get closer to your true target.”

“I- Grandfather, I don’t understand?”

“Your father would have flown into a sun, for you. Would have laid down his life in a heartbeat to help preserve yours.  That’s the kind of loyalty you want to throw at your enemies, not throw away.”

“But- but you said I did well!”

“You did.  Now that you have proven your loyalty to your Master, he will allow you closer.  The more someone trusts you, the easier it is to kill them.”

“I- Kill-  You mean Leader Snoke?”

Panic edged the boy’s question, and Vader let his voice go cold. “It is the way of the Dark side. There can be only one Master.  If you cannot follow through on the path you have started on, then I have no use for you.”

“No, no I can do it!” The boy lurched forward, ending up on his knees and looking up at the slagged mask in a state of panicked supplication. “Please, grandfather, please, just give me a chance!”

Vader let the silence hang, winding the boy up another notch or two. “Very well,” he said, voice still not quite as warm as it had first been, but not the frosty tones from a moment before, either.

“Thank you, grandfather!” the boy slumped with relief.

Vader reined in his Darkness, letting his presence 'vanish’ from the room.

Turning to Anakin, he found his doppelgänger staring at him as a nerf might stare at a nexu. “What was that?” Anakin demanded in a harsh voice.

Vader lifted one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “I was played like a fiddle by my _dear Master_ Sidious for several years. I imagine you were too. Sooner or later, some of the lessons stick.”

“ _This_ is how you intend to save him? To 'turn him back’?”

“It’s a start.” Vader growled. “He's been manipulated to the Dark side. If brute force won’t save him, then we have to manipulate him back to the Light side.”

“I don’t like it,” Anakin said.

“I’m not asking you to. But if it comes down to saving him this way or losing him, which would you prefer?” Vader asked.  He knew before Anakin slumped in defeated acceptance that his doppelgänger would go along with it.  Doing bad things for good ends had always been their weakness.


End file.
